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They lost everything in the Sonoma County fires. So they decided to make some wine.

Plus: rosé for summer and more, in this week’s Drinking with Esther newsletter

Esther Mobley| on
July 31, 2019

Photo: Esther Mobley / The Chronicle

Greg and Lindsay Hamilton launched Hamilton Family Wines after losing their home in the 2017 Sonoma wildfires.

Greg and Lindsay Hamilton launched Hamilton Family Wines after...

Sonoma County was just beginning to feel like home for Greg and Lindsay Hamilton when, on the evening of October 8, 2017, they lost everything.

Around 11:30 that night, “we saw the flames on Adobe Canyon,” Lindsay says. With no notifications and no emergency vehicles in sight, they figured the fire must be small. But just to be safe, they loaded their two young children, Alba and Abhainn, into the car and headed to Santa Rosa to find a hotel. They had no idea that those flames would grow into the 54,000-acre Nuns Fire, and that it would be the last time they’d see their home, on Highway 12 in the heart of Sonoma Valley, intact.

The Hamiltons had moved here just a year earlier. They’d left their longtime perch in Berkeley in order to raise their kids in the country — and they hoped eventually to break into the wine industry. Greg had worked for Oddbins wine shop in the U.K. and for a California winery. The couple had been dabbling in home winemaking in their Berkeley garage, while they both worked full-time in marketing for Cisco Systems. Now the dream of a winery finally seemed within reach: Their new Kenwood home, right next door to Landmark Vineyards, came with 3.5 acres of grapevines.

The period that followed the fateful evening of October 8 was chaotic: moving from hotel to hotel, crashing at friends’ houses, finding ways to explain the situation to the children, then ages 4 and 2. It was three weeks before the Hamiltons were able to get back to their property, though neighbors had already warned them of what they would find. Their Sonoma dream home was a pile of ash. “There was nothing,” Lindsay says.

As they began to rebuild their life in a rental unit nearby, the Hamiltons began to wonder whether it might be the right time to start that wine project after all. Sure, they were in the midst of rebuilding their house, working full-time and re-acclimating the kids to a new environment. “But when you lose everything,” Lindsay says, “you start to think: What are you waiting for?”

So in late fall of that year, the Hamiltons made the first step toward starting a winery. A friend introduced them to a local winemaker, Jess Wade, who agreed to consult for the new label. Wade allocated some of the fruit he’d bought in 2017 for the Hamiltons, and helped them scout out other nearby vineyards for the upcoming 2018 vintage. He makes the wine for them in a custom-crush facility nearby.

The goal of Hamilton Family Wines, they say, is to showcase Sonoma — a small expression of gratitude toward the community that has welcomed them with open arms. “We were so inspired by how the community came together after the disaster,” says Lindsay. To that end, they’re working only with Sonoma County fruit, and they’ve just released their inaugural three wines: an elegant, strawberry-inflected 2017 Petaluma Gap Pinot Noir ($55), a watermelon-forward 2018 Sonoma Coast rosé ($28) and a textured, citrusy 2018 Sauvignon Blanc from Indian Springs Vineyard, nearby in Kenwood ($32). Grenache blends and a Bordeaux-style red are underway. They’re replanting parts of their small home vineyard (a few vines were damaged in the fires) to Grenache, which they hope to use for more rosé.

On a recent summer afternoon, the Hamiltons’ property feels tranquil and lush. Insects buzz through their rows of vines, all farmed organically. Their new house, ensconced in Tyvek wrap, is coming along; the family hopes to move in by the end of this year. The adjacent barn and old carriage house, curiously, were untouched by the fires, and if they can get the permits, Greg and Lindsay hope to be able to hold tastings here someday.

“When the whole thing’s done, we’re going to sit here and say to each other, ‘We are so lucky,’” Lindsay says.

What I’m drinking

Photo: Russell Yip / The Chronicle 2015

Bibiana Gonzalez Rave, the 2015 Chronicle Winemaker of the Year, has two wine labels: Cattleya (a type of orchid, and the national flower of her native Colombia) and the value-priced Alma de Cattleya.

Bibiana Gonzalez Rave, the 2015 Chronicle Winemaker of the Year,...

Nowadays, rosé season extends all year long, but personally I still experience an extra hankering for the stuff during summer. The incredible gift of the last decade’s rosé revolution is that there’s now a plethora of dry, well-made, serious pink wine — a far cry from the saccharine white Zinfandels that once dominated the market — and much of it is actually pretty well priced. One of the several great rosés I’ve had recently (in addition to the Hamilton Family rendition!) is the 2018 Alma de Cattleya Rosé of Pinot Noir (14.1%, $20), from Bibiana González Rave, a former Chronicle Winemaker of the Year. Her 2018 is substantially lighter in color and extraction than her 2017 rosé, but no less powerful: It’s a resoundingly fresh expression of watermelon, honeydew and strawberry. The wine goes down easy on its own but would also enhance a summer salad with sweet corn or ripe tomatoes.

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• Are sommeliers at a disadvantage if they didn’t grow up eating Western foods? What if you can’t for the life of you find “gooseberry” in Sauvignon Blancs, but your nose can distinguish between multiple types of guava? In Wine Enthusiast, Caroline Hatchett has an excellent piece on three Filipino American somms — Jhonel Faelnar, Miguel de Leon and Anthony Cailan — running top New York wine programs, and how their upbringings influenced their palates.

• My colleague Justin Phillips has been reporting on the pending opening of a very large restaurant (10,000 square feet) in a very wealthy Bay Area suburb (Atherton). Selby’s will be the latest spot from Bacchus Management Group, which also owns Spruce, the Saratoga and the Village Pub. What caught my eye: The wine list will have 3,000 to 4,000 individual wines, with 20,000 bottles stored onsite. Also, a $50 hamburger.